In the Research Intensive curriculum, a part of elective courses is replaced by a 1st year master thesis.

Common courses are taken by all students. Non french-speaking students take a first course of French as a Foreign Language (FLE) as Professional Insertion (3 credits 1st semester) and a second course of FLE as the Foerign Language course of the 2nd semester. For french speaking students, the Foreign Language course is english, or another language or transverse course if they are proficient in english.

The other common courses are a common program in nanosciences, introducing the fundamental concepts as well as various techniques of elaboration, manipulation and characterization of nano-sized objects in high-tech lab classes.

Program courses depend on the background of students. They prepare them for their 2nd year specialization by choosing a major in nano-physics, nano-chemistry or nano-biosciences.

Elective courses allow students to deepen their knowledge in their core specialization and to widen their background to other disciplines. Students can choose:
- courses in another program than theirs
- courses in the list below.

Research Internship in Nanosciences and nanotechnologies (6 ECTS): students pursue an internship of minimum 8 weeks between april to june, in a research institute or a company, on a subject related to nanosciences or nanotechnologies. They conduct a research project under the guidance of their supervisor. The internship can be extended during the summer up a length of 4 months.

Courses short description:

Surfaces and interfaces - 3 ECTSContact:
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Goal: As the size of systems decreases, surface effects become more important. The nano- scale is also the scale at which surface effects dominate over bulk effects. This course introduces the main notions to adress the specific properties and the organization of matter at surfaces from a physical, chemical and biological point of view.

Goal: The goal of this course is to train students to master in an operational way the concepts and the techniques of quantum mechanics required to pursue advanced studies in nano-physics. The course activity will be based mainly on tutoring sessions devoted to problem-solving. Students will be assigned homework on a week-to-week basis, to review/acquire the fundamental notions in quantum mechanics on textbooks or slides, and they will be given questions and problems to prepare for the classes, in order to develop their ability in solving quantum physics problems.

Goal: This solid-state physics class aims at providing the basics theories that allow to understand the properties of materials, and in particular their electronic and vibrational properties. Why are some solids metallic and other semiconducting ? Can we calculate their specific heat ? What is their velocity of sound ? Applications to low-dimensional systems (including graphene and nanotubes) will serve as a bridge to nanosciences.

Goal: To introduce the basic statistical physics and thermodynamic concepts to address the equi-ibrium and evolution properties of nano-scale systems.

Content: The course will start from a thermodynamic view of materials, justified by microscopic models. It will explore the rich physics and physical-chemistry that governs the formation of complex nanostructured materials, from metallic alloys to polymers and other self-organized soft matter systems. The extension to biological systems will provide examples in which these notions can be extended to non-equilibrium situations.

Goal: Microfluidics studies the transport of liquids at the scale of some micrometer to the hundred of micrometer, such as the flow of red blood cells in a blood vessel, the transport of polymer chains in a porous medium, or the locomotion of micro-organisms. Nanofluidics studies the flow of liquids at the colloidal scale, that is at distance of the nanometer to the micrometer from a surface. This course introduces the concepts of low Reynolds number flows and surface-driven flows and describes the main properties of flows and transport at the sub-millimeter scale.

Goal: Understand and solve the electromagnetic wave equations (Maxwell) for various systems (vacuum, dielectrics, conductors and their association). Understand the basic concepts of spectroscopy due to the interaction photon-matter.

Goal: The course presents the fundamental properties of nucleic acids and proteins. It conveys basic knowledge about biologically active molecules, their properties and their function. An introduction to bioinformatics is provided.
Practicals are intended to illustrate the theoretical knowledge on DNA and proteins with biochemical experiments. They provide hands-on work with the basic techniques in molecular genetics and protein biochemistry. See here

Content. Different topics will be discussed :
- Structure and function of proteins
- Nucleic acids and the genetic code
- Regulation of gene expression
- Introduction to enzymology
- Molecular biology techniques to analyse and modify nucleic acids and proteins
The introduction to bioinformatics gives insight into:
- Protein 3D structure and genome analysis<o:p> as well as primer design.

Goal: Mechanics plays a forefront role at the nanoscale, from the generation of nano-structures by growth instabilities to the properties of nano-composite materials, the design of micro and nano-mechanical devices, the nano-imaging techniques, the control of biologic functions. This course introduces the mechanics of continuous media and its main applications to nanosciences and nano-technologies.

Content: Innovative project in biology or biotechnology. The subject will be defined in collaboration with an external laboratory or a biotechnological company. The experimental work can be done by a small team.
The subject and a short bibliography will be done initially. The students will then have free access to the biology lab at the CIME facility. Experimental work will be performed in the presence of scientists or technicians. Experiments will be recorded in a notebook. Every week, the team will meet the biologist staff.

Goal : The course provides an introduction to systems biology by focusing on the behaviors emerging from interactions between genes, proteins and RNAs, taking examples from microbes to mammals. The main goal of this course is to show students that abstract computational and mathematical methods can be effectively employed for in silico modeling and analysis of living organisms. Moreover, to enhance practical skills, students will apply some of the techniques and software tools to analyze genome-scale models and models of cell metabolism and gene expression.

Goal: All electronic systems interacting with the real world include sensors and/or actuators.
This course is meant to provide an introduction to the analog electronic processing of the signal provided by a sensor. A complete system will be studied, from the sensor to the analog to digital converter.

Goal: To introduce the physical phenomena which appear in semiconductor materials and are used in microelectronic sensors or devices. To understand the physics and operation of basic semiconductor devices: PN junctions, metal-oxide semiconductor (MOS) capacitors, MOS transistors.

Optical spectroscopy concerns itself with the interaction between light and matter. In this lecture we present a theoretical framework to discuss the absorption, emission, and luminescence properties of atomic and molecular systems. Experimental techniques will be discussed, including modern and state-of-the-art techniques used in the environmental (e.g., infrared trace gas detection) and life sciences (such as Raman non-linear spectroscopies).

Physiology : the course provides an overview of the pathways by which metabolic substrates are absorbed, stored, and used by the human organism in physiological and pathophysiological conditions. Following an introduction regarding macromolecules composing living systems and the main biochemical reactions involved in energy production, the physiology of the liver, adipose tissue, and skeletal muscle will be described as well as their roles in bioenergetics. Physiological (exercise) and pathophysiological (type I and II diabetes) variations of bioenergetic metabolism will then be studied in details. Finally, cardiovascular physiology will be described as well as the main pathophysiological mechanisms of cardiovascular diseases.

Cell biology : using illustrating examples, lectures will explain the dynamical organization of living cells, explore different techniques used to study cell functions and show the complementarity between experimental approaches and different scales.

After each chapter, the newly introduced concepts will be illustrated through the analysis and discussion of scientific articles, either by the teacher or by the students. Each student will be required to present at least one article to the group during the overall lectures.

Goal : Acquire knowledge concerning the methods of macromolecular synthesis and the characteriza-tion of polymers (structure and average molecular mass). The lecture part is dealing on one hand with the chemistry of polymers, and on the other hand with the study of the physical chemistry of polymers. The discussion section part includes exercises on the following topics in particular: average molecular masses, polycondensation, free-radical polymerization processes and biopolymers. These exercises allow strengthening the knowledge on these topics.

Goal: Give notions on configurational and conformational analysis of polymer chains ; self-organization of polymers at the solid state (amorphous state and glass transition, crystalline and semi-crystalline states) ; general thermomechanical behaviour and methods for the elaboration of polymers and polymer-forming.

Research Training - 3 ECTS
Goal: Immerse students in a research team of the Grenoble area in Nanosiences and Nanotechnologies.
Students spend 10 days in a research team and perform a research project under the supervision of a professor. They get a first contact with the Grenoble research environment in nanosciences and nanotechnologies.